No Mans Skys Expeditions update is taking us on a galactic road trip

Pack your bags and charge your oxygen tanks, spacefarers. No Man's Sky is embarking on a trip across the stars with today's free Expeditions update—and everyone's invited.

Arriving as a new game mode alongside Normal, Survival and Creative, Expeditions start all players out on the same planet with a random assortment of tech, equipment and ships. A path of milestones is laid out, tasking you with objectives like establishing bases or discovering creatures, with rendezvous planets set up to bring the community back together at certain intervals.

It sounds like a good way to give yourself some direction in No Man's Sky, one that'll also bring you closer to the community. But it's also a route to unlocking cool new ships, cosmetics and commemorative patches—with every Expedition phase's reward shared across all your No Man's Sky saves.

Expeditions are effectively seasons, resetting with a new rewards track, theme and timeframe with each new venture. If you've fallen for a particular expedition character, though, you'll be able to continue a save past the Expedition's end as a normal NMS save (though Expedition rewards will no longer be available for unlock).

Intergalactic road tripping might be the Expedition update's headline feature, but the patch also adds a slew of smaller changes and improvements. Rather than following objective icons, missions will now give vaguer directional cues, with quests themselves being reworked for "greater depth and interest."

Expedition-class ships have also been given a visual overhaul, as has the game's HUD. Sentinel combat has been reworked to be a bit less point 'n' shoot, ships can now be swapped out, and discoveries are now shared across all platforms (with older discoveries taking precedence). The Expedition Update site has a sizeable list of additional bug fixes and changes.

But most importantly of all, those massive bipedal Sentinel walkers will now "Titanfall" in from orbit. Titanfall is a verb now. You heard it here first.
Pack your bags and charge your oxygen tanks, spacefarers. No Man's Sky is embarking on a trip across the stars with today's free Expeditions update—and everyone's invited.

Arriving as a new game mode alongside Normal, Survival and Creative, Expeditions start all players out on the same planet with a random assortment of tech, equipment and ships. A path of milestones is laid out, tasking you with objectives like establishing bases or discovering creatures, with rendezvous planets set up to bring the community back together at certain intervals.

It sounds like a good way to give yourself some direction in No Man's Sky, one that'll also bring you closer to the community. But it's also a route to unlocking cool new ships, cosmetics and commemorative patches—with every Expedition phase's reward shared across all your No Man's Sky saves.

Expeditions are effectively seasons, resetting with a new rewards track, theme and timeframe with each new venture. If you've fallen for a particular expedition character, though, you'll be able to continue a save past the Expedition's end as a normal NMS save (though Expedition rewards will no longer be available for unlock).

Intergalactic road tripping might be the Expedition update's headline feature, but the patch also adds a slew of smaller changes and improvements. Rather than following objective icons, missions will now give vaguer directional cues, with quests themselves being reworked for "greater depth and interest."